


Point of view

by Splinter



Category: Atomic Blonde
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, F/F, Kissing, haven't seen the movie yet AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 11:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11207094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splinter/pseuds/Splinter
Summary: Delphine meets Lorraine in Berlin.This is a Haven’t Seen The Movie Yet AU. Atomic Blonde won't be released in my country for a few weeks, and I’ve decided not to read The Coldest City, the graphic novel it’s based on, until I’ve seen the film.I wrote this because I loved the dynamics ofthis clip, and wanted to play with them – maybe I can come back to these characters once I know what’s really going on! In the meantime, this is for the slack group.Beta-read by the wonderfulTyellas.





	Point of view

Delphine perches on her bar stool, a little tense. This is one of Berlin’s sleeker clubs, chosen to match her date’s elegance but also for its high ceilings and long sightlines. She’s dressed up enough to fit in, she thinks, enough that any rough edges will make her look like one of the artists. The invitations she’s brushed off on her way here have included one from a student, one from an art patron: good enough. 

The club is both more expensive and whiter than others she visits here. In Berlin, she’s usually taken for Tunisian or even Turkish, which has its uses. The first assumption is that she's a familiar kind of foreigner, another Gastarbeiter, not a visiting Frenchwoman. No one here has yet guessed Algerian.

Her choice of this seat won't have looked deliberate, but it has a view up and down the packed room, all exits in sight, with another angle visible in the mirror behind the bar. She spots Lorraine Broughton’s bright blonde hair the second she comes in, which leaves plenty of time to get the drinks ordered.

She times turning around about right, early enough to make it clear that she’s interested. She hadn’t been sure if the flutter in her stomach is for the date or for the job, but she can’t stop her eyes lingering on that mouth, those bare shoulders. 

“I didn’t think that you would show.” She flicks her hair and leans in, angling for a reaction. Lorraine sits cool and still, not giving anything away.

Her scent is smoky, with an enticing touch of leather. Almost in self-defence, Delphine’s analytical side kicks in, cataloguing signals: the perfume is Piguet’s Bandit, worn with a stark black dress that’s just right for this bar. It bothers her that she isn’t sure of the designer. She can’t afford to be off her game.

Delphine has known about Lorraine for a while, long enough to make her a kind of role model. In this line of work, you get to hear about agents, about major players. Women are still rare, still subject to Mata Hari jokes and too many assumptions. She knows Broughton’s reputation, knows that there’s a sharp edge to her. 

She must have been an outsider, at least to start with, a working class girl in a service that still fantasises about James Bond and George Smiley. Delphine knows that MI6 opened cracks of opportunity in the aftermath of the Cambridge scandal, the service shaken enough to question its usual public school sources. Even so.

She’s aware of parallels in her own career, has often wondered how the British agent handled this or that challenge. Broughton’s upper-middle class English accent still shifts a little, hinting at a process of self-transformation. It’s not enough to count as a tell; there’s no sense that the shifts happen under pressure, no hint of insecurity. That icy poise must have started as a front, but it looks both natural and unshakeable now. Delphine tries not to fidget, aware of heat building under the usual adrenaline buzz of setting up a contact.

Lorraine is waiting to see what Delphine has to offer; everything suggests she can take it or leave it. It’s the kind of silence you want to fill, the kind that makes you bid too high.

Delphine has always given too much, wanted too much, and always known it. At the age of eight, when she arrived in Paris, her new French classmates had seen her as another Pied-Noir coming back from Algeria after independence. The other _colons_ had immediately spotted her dual heritage, even before her father came to collect her from school. She’d made friends with both sides, already full of quick, chattering charm, but it made her hyperaware of her different layers, her different roots. She remembers countless small moments of surprise at the way her contemporaries took these things for granted, at the details they missed. 

So she’s long had a sense of connection with Broughton, perhaps of rivalry. Now that they’re sitting in the same bar, she lets her eyes track over her, noting the body language, the polished look. Being on a job always means thinking on multiple levels: the cover story, the motives underneath. What you tell people, what you tell yourself, what you’d only tell your control. She’s doing that now, aware of the current of lust running under it all. 

“Stoli on the rocks?” She hands the glass over.

“You pay attention,” Lorraine says, with a gleam of interest. 

“I look for pleasure in the details.” Delphine gives a little shrug as she says it, sexy and self-deprecating, making the most of a cheesy line and letting herself mock it a little. She’s good at this, she knows she is, but she’s more self-conscious than usual, trying to make the nerves come across as high energy. 

She sips her own glass of vodka, which isn’t her favourite drink. She prefers something warmer, with a softer edge. Unexpectedly, her girlfriend of three years ago comes to mind: a kind and funny woman, the perfect girl to come home to. She’d walked out because Delphine so rarely came home.

There’s no time for that now. She has work to do.

“Speaking of which, I’ve been dying to ask you a question.” Many, if she’s honest, though most of them aren’t part of the plan. Leaning in to kiss Lorraine, she feels the gun heavy in its holster at the small of her back. 

It’s a quick kiss, present but not demanding: it’s meant as an invitation. Lorraine’s mouth is soft, giving nothing away but open to further offers. She doesn’t meet Delphine more than half way, but her eyes close, then open in a heavy-lidded look that turns the spark of lust into a surge. Her eye makeup is flawless, as polished as the rest of her. Delphine wonders how she’d look without it, when she’s mussed, when she’s bare.

“Let’s go someplace quiet.” She gets up as if she knows Lorraine will follow, but there’s still that little shock of anticipation when she does, at the way she allows Delphine to take her hand. She hadn’t imagined that Lorraine might let herself be led, realises she hasn’t thought nearly enough about what happens next. What happens now.

Lorraine’s fingers are warm in her hand, pressing against her palm. Turning to look at her, Delphine sees her gaze go from considering to heated, as plain as the change in the bar’s coloured lights. As they get through the door, her own heart is thumping.

They turn the corner to the stairs, and Lorraine is on her, pushing her up against the wall. There’s so much power under that sleek elegance, hard muscle under velvety soft skin. Delphine doesn’t like vodka, but the taste of it on Lorraine’s tongue makes her grind her hips forward, biting at her lip, gasping at the feel of her hands on her. 

On her, round her, into the small of her back to grab the gun, as fast as a snake. She must have known it was there, must have spotted it in spite of the leather jacket covering it. Next thing Delphine knows, she’s staring down the barrel.

“Why the gun, Delphine?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at [lurkinghistoric](http://lurkinghistoric.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


End file.
